The US federal government recently "took action" against several websites connected with movie streaming and peer-to-peer file sharing.

What "taking action" means is that the federal government has ordered a free blogging platform taken down by its hosting provider on the grounds the website has a "history of abuse."

In order to shut down the handful of 'offending' sites, the government also had to shut down seventy-three thousand different blogs hosted there.

The scariest part of it all is the cloak of secrecy that shrouds the entire affair. The government won't explain the reasons behind it and Burstnet has evidently been sworn to secrecy. Burstnet explained in an emmail:

"Bn.xx*********** was terminated by request of law enforcement officials, due to material hosted on the server. We are limited as to the details we can provide to you, but note that this was a critical matter and the only available option to us was to immediately deactivate the server

"In addition to the domain seizures, agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) seized assets from 15 bank, PayPal, investment and other advertising accounts. Four residential search warrants were also executed."

I wonder how many blogs Burstnet was hosting that were were pro-Obama?

Insofar as anyone can tell, the website seizures were accomplished without due process. What the feds ordered ICANN to do is called "domain hijacking" and it would be a criminal offense if committed by any other entity besides the US federal government.

While the domains, content data and financial accounts were all seized, there were no arrests and no criminal charges filed. In essence, the federal government involved itself in a civil matter that ordinarily would be under the jurisdiction of the courts.

swirling_vortex

07-24-2010, 11:53 PM

From what I heard, the sites were taken down because they had links to Al-Qaeda and bomb making instructions, but it seems absurd to terminate the whole blogging service. Apparently, this service was run by one person in Canada, so it's kind of scary that our government can now shut down things that aren't run in this country. Probably another genius idea at Homeland Insecurity.

There's also another rumor that this site was shut down because of anti-piracy measures. If that's true, then the RIAA, the MPAA, and other agency rip-offs now can exert government control to shut down any site they accuse of having piracy. Either way, it's an assault on our free speech and we're on track to building another great firewall of China, except it'll be a lot more discrete.

m00

07-25-2010, 02:35 PM

From what I heard, the sites were taken down because they had links to Al-Qaeda and bomb making instructions, but it seems absurd to terminate the whole blogging service.

I think the blogging service was taken down because the one thing that outrages government is the free exchange of ideas, when untaxed and unregulated and somewhat anonymous. Government loves to look for excuses to flex its muscle in these areas to create precedent, and terrorism is a handy tool to this end. Who opposes actions done in the name of combating terrorism? Terrorists, that's who.

Janice

07-24-2012, 01:00 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MokNvbiRqCM

Megaupload boss raps Obama in musical protest

Megaupload boss Kim Dotcom has launched an online song attacking US President Barack Obama and urging supporters not to vote for the US leader, who he accuses of trampling on Internet freedom.

In a song titled "Mr President" released on YouTube, the self-styled cyber freedom fighter, who allegedly masterminded a massive online piracy business, compares himself to US civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King.

Dotcom, free on bail in New Zealand awaiting a US attempt to extradite him for alleged copyright theft, raps "don't vote for those who would take us back in time".

"What about free speech Mr President, what happened to change Mr President," the German national continues in the song, which has attracted almost 500,000 views since it was posted on YouTube on Sunday.

He also complains "Hollywood controls politics" and "the government is killing innovation". >>>

A website launched to accompany the song, www.kim.com, features a countdown to the US election in November and asks "if Megaupload.com is not back online by November 1st will you vote for Obama?".

The White House has left open the possibility of enacting its Internet agenda via executive order after the failed effort to bring the Democrat-supported cybersecurity bill to a full vote in the Senate last week.

In response to a question from The Hill, a Washington, D.C. political newspaper, about whether President Obama was considering advancing his party’s cyber-plan through an executive order, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney didn’t rule out the possibility.

“In the wake of Congressional inaction and Republican stall tactics, unfortunately, we will continue to be hamstrung by outdated and inadequate statutory authorities that the legislation would have fixed,” he said via email.

“Moving forward, the President is determined to do absolutely everything we can to better protect our nation against today’s cyber threats and we will do that,” added Carney.

The failed cyber security bill, which could be revived by Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid when the Senate comes back from recess in September, would have given federal agencies in charge of regulating critical infrastructure industries like power companies and utilities the ability to mandate cybersecurity recommendations.

Shortly before the Senate’s August recess, Obama penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed in which he threw his support behind the Cybersecurity Act of 2012.

An executive order would be another action from the Obama administration to extend executive branch authority over a largely free and open Internet.